The Yes
by Cat's Tales5
Summary: Lily Evans and James Potter started going out in seventh year, in the midst of the start of the wizarding war. This story follows them and their friends through their final year at Hogwarts as they form friendships and relationships to help them face the scary reality of the outside world. LE/JP and SB/MM
1. The Apology

**AN:** **I started this story a couple of years ago with the idea of a funny, sweet romance where the characters are all in a happy safe bubble at Hogwarts. Every time I came back to it, it somehow got darker with more references to the oncoming war and has turned into something far more serious than intended. The story that it has become is much longer, more detailed and better than my original plan, but it was written over a long span of time and completely out of order, so I'm not entirely sure that the whole thing makes sense as one story. I hope you like it anyway – please review and let me know what you think!**

 **Also I acknowledge JK Rowling as the rightful queen of the world, and owner of everything in this story.**

I was walking quickly along the corridors towards charms class, aware that I only had a few minutes before class started thanks to my detour to stop a fifth year Slytherin from dropping green slime on first years from other houses. I swore as I rounded a corner and bumped into a suit of armour I was positive had not been in that corridor yesterday. It clattered, but didn't fall as I righted it, cringing at the loud noise.

"That was lucky, Evans," James Potter's voice said behind me, obviously trying to cover up a laugh.

"Thanks for the input, Potter," I rolled my eyes. It was day four of the first term of our seventh year and Potter and I had seen a lot of each other so far, what with our new roles as Head students. However, I hadn't really had a chance to look at him in our meetings so far; now that I was watching him walk towards me it was impossible to avoid. He was taller, I noticed, but still gangly with wild hair.

"Any time, Evans," he grinned, running his hand through his hair in a familiar gesture.

"Why do I feel like you had something to do with that suit of armour walking itself into the middle of the corridor?" I asked him, half joking, half frustrated as he reached me and we started to walk together towards charms.

"I'm really not sure Evans, maybe because of your general opinion about me. However, you might notice that the suit of armour has legs and is actually capable of walking itself around."

"Sure Potter," I shot back. "That must be why I see the suits of armour wandering the corridors constantly."

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye in time to see him grin and ruffle his hair again in that maddening way of his. "Must be. So how was your summer, Evans? I haven't really asked what with all this Head business going on."

I was somewhat surprised by the civil topic of conversation, but I went with it. "Summer was fine I suppose, just the usual really. Glad to be back though." My heart twinged as I thought of the loneliness I had felt at times over the holidays. Despite the fact that it had been over a year since Severus and I were really friends, it had still been odd not having him around to talk to back home. To make matters worse, Petunia had been particularly hard to handle this Summer, swanning around with her new, pompous and infuriatingly dull boyfriend. I shook myself out of my thoughts, realising I was being a bit rude by not continuing the conversation. "How was your summer, anyway?"

"Yeah quite good. Look Evans, there's something I wanted to say while I've got you alone," he stopped and turned to face me in a small alcove before we turned into the corridor where the charms classroom was located. I stopped and looked up at him, my mind suddenly flashing back to a very similar situation we had been in around about this time last year. It had been our second day back from holidays and Potter had caught me alone on my way to the Great Hall after class, with that same serious, worried look on his face and his hands fiddling with his hair.

"Evans, I'm sorry for, you know, what happened at the end of last year," he had said, his voice low but firm, referring to that awful day that they had been bullying Snape and which had ended my friendship with him when he lashed out at me with that horrible word. I had stared at Potter in surprise, not expecting that from him at all, and he went on. "I mean, I'm not sorry for hexing Snape because really, what he said to you was despicable." Anger crossed his face. "But I know you don't need anyone to fight your battles for you, and I know you hate it when I treat him like that, so I am sorry, to you. I didn't mean to interfere or to upset you, and I know I acted like a jerk so I'm sorry."

He had stared at me intently until I muttered; "It's ok Potter. I appreciate that you hate the word as much as I do." He had broken into a huge grin and I hadn't been able to help smiling back. That day had been, I realised now in hindsight, the beginning of a tentative peace between the two of us. It broke now and then into bickering or sometimes full on arguing, and sometimes he still looked at me like I was – well, just in a way I didn't want him to look at me. As if he couldn't take his eyes away. But for the most part, we got along fairly well for our sixth year and I had to admit, I didn't mind his company half as much as I used to.

I pulled myself out of my memory to the present and focused on Potter. He was watching me as he ran his hands through his hair, biting his bottom lip. "I just wanted to say – I know you're probably worried about my being made Head Boy, but I promise I'm going to try really hard not to screw it up." He paused, drawing in a breath and staring at me intensely. I knew I was meant to react but had no idea what to say so I just stared back at him, until he spoke again. "I wasn't expecting to be chosen; I don't think anyone expected it to be me really, but I'm glad Dumbledore has that kind of faith in me and I plan to live up to his expectations."

"Well, thanks Potter. I have to admit I didn't see it coming either, but it's nice to hear that you're taking this seriously," I told him. "And I know you haven't been a prefect before so there will be a lot of things that are new to you – more so than they are to me, I mean, so I'll try to help you out wherever I can. As Dumbledore said to us in our meeting the other day, we're a team now." I was getting uncomfortable with the close proximity and the eye contact so I moved out of the alcove and continued towards Charms, Potter falling into step alongside me.

"I – that's great. Really, thanks a lot Evans, I'm sure I'll be taking you up on that now and then. And for what it's worth, I think we'll be a great team." I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and saw that he was he still grinning.

"Anytime, Potter," I told him as we reached the classroom and walked away from each other to our respective seats. That conversation left me in a good mood that lasted the rest of the day.


	2. The Suggestion

"So you and Evans are managing to work together civilly then?" Peter asked me as we entered our dorm room and started getting ready for bed.

"Why do you say that?"

"You came into charms with her yesterday, and neither of you had any spell damage. You've been in a good mood since then too."

"Mmm, good observation Pete. We agreed to work together, and she said she'll help me out where she can so that's positive I'd say," I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face.

"I'm just impressed you've had multiple conversations this week with no spell damage so far," Peter told me, smirking.

"Well it wouldn't look great if the Head Girl killed the Head Boy in our first week back, would it?" Sirius put in with a grin.

"Hey! She might dislike me sometimes, but Evans wouldn't kill me! For one thing, she's too nice to murder anyone, and for another I know she loves me, secretly," I joked, grinning at them. Remus, Peter and Sirius exchanged a meaningful look which I know meant they had been talking about me behind my back. I waited for one of them to respond, but it seemed none of them wanted to broach whatever it was they had decided to say to me. I watched them with raised eyebrows until Pete ducked, Sirius shook his head, firmly and Remus rolled his eyes, then looked at me.

"Whatever it is you three have obviously discussed about me, just spit it out," I said, still smiling but with an edge to my voice. I had a feeling I wasn't going to like whatever they said next.

"Look, James," Remus said softly. "I don't want to - you know that I like Lily right? I think she's smart and funny and a great friend. I actually think you'd make a good couple if she was interested, but she's not. And I don't think it's good for you to constantly be pining over her when she seems pretty determined not to change her mind." They were all watching me carefully, waiting for my reaction.

"Don't you think I know that, Moony? My life would be much easier if I could forget about her, but unless you have a wonderful version of obliviate that erases feelings rather than memories, it doesn't seem like it's going to happen," I told him, frustrated.

"You should just focus more on other stuff," Sirius suggested.

"Yeah," Peter chimed in. "Like studying." Sirius and I both gave him exaggeratedly confused looks, until he rolled his eyes and tried again. "Oh fine, what about pranks?"

"Thanks for the suggestion Pete, but I'm Head Boy now. I really can't afford to get in trouble with pointless pranks." Sirius choked on the chocolate frog he had found under his cloak, and stared at me in horror.

"What? No more pranks? What will we even do with our time? How will anyone know who we are?" Remus shot him a withering look, and for once I agreed with him.

"I didn't say none, just less," I told Sirius, rolling my eyes. "And not for no reason. So we're back to me having no idea how to get my mind off Evans."

"Play more quidditch?" Sirius suggested

Remus rolled his eyes at that. "Yeah, like he doesn't play enough quidditch already." There was silence for a few seconds, then Remus spoke again. "Maybe you should date someone else. There's a Hogsmeade weekend in a few weeks, ask someone to go with you."

I was taken aback for a second, trying to wrap my brain around that. "You mean, ask someone who is not Evans to Hogsmeade?" Remus nodded, looking at me like I was a complete idiot.

"Well – like who? I don't like any other girls."

"That's sort of the point, mate," Sirius said, laughing at me.

"It doesn't really matter, Prongs. Just pick a girl who you get along well with and like spending time with," Remus said, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

"But – I mean isn't that bad? To ask someone out if I don't have feelings for her, isn't that leading them on?" I asked, genuinely unsure about the idea. I didn't want to give anyone the wrong idea and then end up hurting them.  
"It doesn't have to be leading them on, as long as you don't lie to them about feeling more than you do. How else will you even know if you like someone if you don't spend time with them?" Remus pointed out.  
"Well, I know I like Evans from being around her in class and in the common room, I've never really thought about other girls like that," I mused out loud.

"Stop being sappy mate," Sirius chided. "The whole point here is to stop thinking about Evans. So, stop comparing everyone else in your life to her and just think about people you like to spend time with. Even if it ends up being nothing, going to Hogsmeade with a girl who's a friend would be fun."

I stared out the window for a second, taking that in. "I can't believe I'm taking relationship advice from never-asked-a-girl-out Lupin and arrogant-toerag Black, but you're probably right."

"Oi! Watch it, you've definitely been called an arrogant toerag in your time too," Sirius reminded me.

"Yeah, and you've never had a date either," Remus chimed in.

"Whatever Moony, at least I've asked someone!" I told him, shrugging casually

"Yeah, ONE being the key term there," Peter grinned, then squeaked as I dived at him over my bed and started attacking him with his own pillows.


	3. The Question

I was sitting out on the grass by the Great Lake with Lily, Mary and Alice on Friday afternoon. We had a gloriously free-from-schoolwork weekend ahead of us and we were chatting about what to do with our free time.

Alice was keen to have a girly Saturday, complete with make-overs and dressing up, while Mary wanted to do "something exciting," though she wasn't sure what.

"We are NOT playing truth or dare for the fiftieth time," Alice told her. "We all know all the answers anyway. So unless you have an idea for something actually exciting-"

"You could always join us in sneaking into a room where the teachers won't find us and drinking copious amounts of Firewhiskey," suggested an unexpected male voice behind us.

I spun around to see Black grinning down at us, followed by Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew.

"Sounds like a fantastic way to get expelled," Lily told them.

Mary, Alice and I exchanged glances. I was somewhat interested, having never tried Firewhiskey before, and Mary was definitely keen judging by her face.

"Hmm, I've never gotten properly drunk before," Mary said. "I had a few champagnes at my cousins wedding in the summer, and it seemed pretty fun but then my Mum banned me."  
"Well now's your chance McDonald." Pettigrew told her. "Are you in?"

Mary shrugged, twirling a strand of her blond hair. "Yeah I reckon so. As long as I can convince this boring lot to come along."

"Hey!" Alice smacked her arm. "I'm not boring, and I'm definitely up for this!" Black grinned at her in approval, and the three of them turned to look at me, clearly thinking I was the easy target and then we could all convince Lily together. They weren't wrong.

"Why not," I said, tilting my head at Lily. "Beats sitting in the common room gossiping about nothing."

"Marlene!" Lily exclaimed. "You were meant to be on my side! What if you get caught?"

"Sorry Lily, but it sounds really fun. And we'll be careful, we won't get caught. Do you really want to sit in the common room all night, alone with the sixth years?" I coaxed.

"Yeah Lily," Alice chimed in. "We need you there to keep us in line." Mary nodded enthusiastically, and Lily looked between our excited faces and the boys smirking behind us, and caved.

"Fine," she sighed. "But we _will_ be careful and we won't get caught. Or drink too much."

"Whatever you say, Evans." Black grinned at her contentedly. "Meet us in the common room after dinner. Don't be late." He smirked one more time and the boys walked away. I couldn't help but think that that smirk was a good look on him.

We all settled in a circle on the couches, marvelling at the room which had appeared out of nowhere after Lupin walked back and forward in front of a blank stretch of wall. It was cosy in there, with exactly enough couches to fit us all in a close circle, a roaring fire in the corner and shelves around the walls stacked with books and board games. Black produced two bottles of Firewhiskey, and Potter pulled a tray of shot glasses off the convenient, but alcohol-free bar.

"Why can't you just ask the room to provide the Firewhiskey instead of sneaking off to get it?" I asked Potter as he handed me a glass.

"Doesn't work," he shrugged. "The room refuses to produce alcohol, it's the only thing we've found it not to do. We think it might be because we're not allowed to drink on school grounds."

Potter settled onto the couch next to me as Black poured the shots and starting listing some of the things they had asked for and been granted, not least of which was enough space to practice quidditch, which I couldn't quite wrap my head around.

"Right," Black said, raising his eyebrows at Potter and I. "Time for a game."

"How about spin the bottle?" Pettigrew suggested. "It's actually an option now there are girls here."  
That suggestion was vehemently shouted down immediately, and eventually we settled on truth or dare. I was hesitant given how boring this game usually was, but thought that since the boys were present it might be more interesting.

I soon discovered that it wasn't; the game swung between pointlessly boring; e.g. truth questions about sex, which were unanimously answered in the negative (aside from Alice), and ridiculous; e.g. Remus wearing high heels and a dress and performing the newest hit song. We were all bored after about a round and a half of questions, and Black pondered out loud what other sources of entertainment we might have.

I got up and wandered towards a shelf full of games, starting to suggest titles out loud. After some discussion, we eventually settled on a mini quidditch game, where you had to get the tiny quaffle through hoops which moved up and down, with the added rule that anyone who missed all three shots on their turn had to drink a shot of Firewhiskey. Pettigrew and Lily were by far the worst, and as a result got drunk more quickly (which resulted in their aim getting even worse). Potter and Black were very good (unsurprising really, considering they were both on the Gryffindor Quidditch team), so Lily and I began adding extra rules on their turns.

"You have to spin around three times before you throw the quaffle," I told Black seriously as he lined up for his fourth shot, and he followed my instructions, stumbling slightly but still scoring with two out of his three shots.

On Potter's next turn, Lily decided that he had to take a shot of Firewhiskey before he even threw the ball. When Black prepared to throw the quaffle again we started waving our arms around the mini hoops to add an extra obstacle for him to avoid. My aim wasn't bad either, and I was chuffed when Potter – as chaser and captain of the quidditch team – told me I was a good shot. I was less happy when Lily and Mary decided that that meant I should be a target of the increasingly ridiculous extra rules as well. It didn't take long before the Firewhiskey bottles were both empty, and we were all exhausted from laughing, though as Black said; "I'm not sure if it's funnier watching Peter and Evans try to hit the targets, or watching Evans and McDonald trying to put us off."

By the time we finished the game it was already past curfew, so we decided we should go back to the common room as quickly and quietly as possible.

We soon realised that wouldn't be as easy as we had thought; the alcohol made itself known as we walked down the corridors, and the group stumbled along, giggling and shushing each other. Lupin had a piece of parchment in front of him that he was checking constantly – half way back to the common room he swore quietly.

"Filch's heading this way. Quick, hide!" We instinctively split up into pairs or threes, and headed in different directions. I ran down a side hallway with Potter and followed him into an empty classroom just as I saw Lily and Mary duck into a closet. I pulled Potter behind the teacher's desk and we both crouched down, holding our breath. We stayed quiet until we heard Filch walk past, and were sure that he had gone, and then we looked at each other and cracked up laughing, trying our best to keep the laughter quiet.

I stood up and offered Potter my hand. He stared at it for a second, then grabbed my hand and I hauled him up. He stumbled slightly, which made me laugh again but when I looked up I realised how close we were standing to one another. He leaned forward, his face coming closer to mine, then suddenly pulled back and stood straight.

"Are you alright, Potter?" I asked in confusion. Had he just tried to kiss me?

"I'm – I'm fine," he muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"Well shall we head back to the tower?" I suggested, still confused about why he wasn't moving.

"Oh, yeah. I mean, wait, no I want to ask you something first."

"Ok then." He paused again and I was getting ready to either smack him or walk away for taking so long, when he drew in a long breath, and not quite looking me in the eyes, said; "will you go to Hogsmeade with me?"  
I stared at him blankly in shock. That was so not what I had expected; in fact I had been bracing myself for a question about Lily's bedtime routine or something.

"I – um, are you sure Potter? You mean like a date, right?"  
"Yeah, I mean a date. Why would I ask if I wasn't sure?" he teased gently.

"It's just, I mean, everyone knows you've been in love with my best friend since third year. This is pretty unexpected, you have to admit."

"I know that it's out of the blue, and it might seem like I'm using you to get to Evans or something, but I swear I'm not. I decided that it's time I grow up and get over her and the best way to do that is to fall for someone else, right? And I actually didn't even think about it being you until tonight, but we have a lot of fun together. You make me laugh. So why not?"  
I blinked for a moment, quite certain I'd never heard Potter be that serious before. But looking at him in the dim classroom light, I believed him. And he was right, we did have fun together. I stood on my toes and pressed a quick, clumsy kiss to his cheek. "Ok Potter, I'll go to Hogsmeade with you." He grinned at me, but before he could respond Black walked in.

"Oh there you two are. Gonna come back with us to the tower or…. Oh." He had apparently noticed that we were still holding hands, standing about 10 centimetres apart. "Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. We'll see you later." He left and Potter and I burst out laughing again, but then followed Black back to the rest of the group, hastily untangling our fingers.


	4. The Team

I flew in lazy circles, paying more attention to the potential new beaters than the bludgers. I wanted to watch them in action without getting in their way so I stuck to the outside of the pitch, flying backwards and forwards so I was close enough to smack the bludgers away from the group of chasers and potential chasers if the kids trying out as beaters let any of them through.

We had lost a chaser, beater and seeker with the graduating students last year and so we were trying out new players to replace each of those positions. It was pretty chaotic trying all three positions at once but it seemed to be working – we had narrowed each position down to a top two and were watching them in action. I knew who my pick was as my fellow beater, and I was fairly sure James would agree with me. I grinned in satisfaction as my preferred pick swooped into the path of a bludger and smacked it away from the chasers and into the stands. I looked down at the group of chasers and would-be chasers, watching them perform drills. The two remaining had obviously been the strongest candidates, one of them being Marlene McKinnon. I was a little surprised she had decided to try out given I had never seen much interest from her in playing before, but she flew well. She seemed to be working well in sync with James and our other existing chaser, Stephanie Smith, which was just as important as actual flying skills. I was distracted from watching McKinnon and Smith pass the quaffle back and forwards over James' head, when there was a shout behind me. I turned to see that Jessie Boot had caught the snitch – for the third time out of three contests between the two strongest candidates, no less. She would join her brother and the team as our new seeker then, I assumed. I watched as James flew over to her and she passed him the snitch.

"Well done Boot," he grinned at her. He blew his whistle and motioned towards the ground, and we all headed down to land on the grass. I grabbed one of bludgers and wrestled it into the box while Stephanie did the same with the other.

"Thanks everyone for coming along," James said loudly, smiling. "It was a good try out and you all flew well. I'll discuss with the other team members from last year and we'll let you know if you were successful by the end of the week." The potential new players shouted their thanks and walked towards the change rooms, chatting amongst themselves. Stephanie, Daniel and I turned to follow them, but James called us back.

"Quick team meeting to get early indications of what you're all thinking," he announced. The four of us huddled together so we wouldn't be overheard.

"Let's start with Seeker; both finalists flew well in the warm up and drills but I think Boot's three for three catches makes her the obvious choice. Does everyone agree with that?" We all nodded our agreement, Daniel grinning proudly at the thought of his sister joining the team.

"Excellent," James said briskly. "So then for the second beater; Sirius, what are you thinking?"

"I like Johnson; he's got quite an arm and a good sense of where the bludgers are and which direction they're going. The other finalist could hit harder but he didn't have that natural ability to read the bludgers and that's hard to teach," I offered.

James nodded. "I was thinking the same thing." He looked towards the others, who both voiced their agreement. "Brilliant, now for the third chaser. Smith, who did you prefer?"

"I'd be happy with either of our top two; they were both good fliers. I think McKinnon was picking up our drills and placements quicker and was more aware of where we were in relation to her, so I have a slight preference for her." Daniel and I both nodded in agreement again.  
James smiled in satisfaction. "I was thinking the same thing," he said. "So, we're agreed on the three new players then, that was easy. I'll have a chat with all of our final candidates over the next couple of days to let them know who was successful before we put it up – I think it's nicer that way for those who didn't make it. Thanks for your time today, I'll let you know as soon as we have a timetable worked out for training." The four of us grinned at each other and turned towards the changerooms.

Not long after, James and I left the changerooms together, both in good moods.

"I reckon we'll have a strong team this year," I told him. "All three of them are good players."

"Yeah, they are." I was prepared for an in-depth discussion about our chances at the Quidditch Cup, but James seemed distracted. I didn't have to spend long wondering why because he abruptly changed the subject.

"McKinnon's a nice girl, don't you think?" He asked. I wondered if he had worked out that I had had a slight crush on McKinnon last year and was hinting at that, but he wasn't smirking at me as he said it. In fact, he was watching the path carefully, as though determined not to trip over – or determined not to look at me.

"Yeah, she's alright," I responded after a pause. "Should be good fun having her on the team."

James paused, then still looking at the ground he said; "well, I'm glad you get along with her since I'll probably be spending more time with her."

"Why's that?" I asked him, confused. We'd both spend the same amount of time with her at quidditch training. He hesitated again, and I thought back to last Saturday and how close they had been standing when I walked into that classroom. When he did finally speak, I almost knew what he was going to say before he said it, but my stomach still sank.

"Because I've asked her out. We're going to Hogsmeade together," he said quietly, still not looking at me.

"Oh right," I said, forcing a smile. "Well, nice one. Hope it goes well," I hoped my voice didn't sound too strained. It was bloody typical, really. I'd had a crush on McKinnon for six months and just when I was starting to actually get the chance to spend time with her outside of class, James would finally give up on love-of-his-life Evans and choose to ask McKinnon out. I wondered if they had kissed on Saturday night when I found them alone together, and was about to ask, but then decided I'd rather not know. I was saved from having to think of anything else to say when James spoke again.

"Anyway, I'm glad Stephanie wanted her on the team too – I didn't want it to look like I was doing her a favour, you know?"

"Yeah, I don't think you needed to worry about that," I told him. "Daniel and I both think she's the best choice too."

James nodded, finally making eye contact with me. "Yeah, I'm just glad it worked out that way. I didn't want to have to start my first date by telling the girl she didn't make the team!" We both laughed at that, and the awkwardness between us dissipated as we discussed our opponent teams in the upcoming quidditch season the rest of the way back to Gryffindor tower.


	5. The Breakfast

"Morning Marlene," Potter greeted me with a smile as I walked into the entrance hall with Mary on Monday. He'd never used my first name before and it sounded odd on his lips, but I decided I didn't mind it.

"Morning Potter," I told him.

"We're going on a date next weekend and you can't call me James?" He grinned.

"Right, sorry James," I told him somewhat sheepishly. "Just habit I guess."

I hadn't told any of the girls about my conversation with Potter two nights previously. I had been excited to tell them when we got back to our dorm on Saturday night but everyone else had collapsed straight into bed, and when I woke up on Sunday I was suddenly worried about what they would say. I was sure they would assume, as I had, that this was some new ploy to win Lily's affections, and so I had kept it to myself yesterday. I looked up at Mary hesitantly, and was glad to see that she looked curious and a bit confused but not angry.

As we sat down opposite Pott- I mean James - and Pettigrew, Mary poked me in the leg and hissed; "why didn't you tell me?"

I just shrugged helplessly and whispered back "I'll explain later."

I turned my attention to filling my plate, unsure as to how I should act around James now that we were – or would be - dating. I looked up at him and smiled when I caught him watching me, and felt slightly better when he blushed and glanced away, apparently not knowing how to talk to me either. The silence between the four of us was starting to get awkward so I nudged Mary in the side and asked who she was going to Hogsmeade with.

"Oh you know, I've just had soo many offers I can't decide!" She drew the words out for dramatic effect. "There's Alice, or Lily or Marlene, oh wait, silly me, Marls is taken!" I blushed in embarrassment, afraid she was going to tell James that I hadn't filled them in, but the two boys laughed and she didn't say any more.

"Well if you need some extra entertainment for the day, you could spend the day with Remus and I trying to stop Sirius from buying Zonko's out of dungbombs," Pettigrew suggested.

"Psh, you shouldn't have said that Peter," Black appeared behind him, usual roguish grin in place. "Now I'm not only going to buy them out, I'm going to make an effort to drop at least one a week when you're around without telling you."

James and Lupin, who had entered with Black, both groaned. "Pete! You can't risk these things, you know we'll both get hit too!" James told him.

"Sorry!" Pettigrew told them, smiling despite himself.

I caught James' eye over the table and mouthed; "this better not happen when I'm around." He cracked up laughing. Mary and Pettigrew looked at us curiously as we both laughed over apparently nothing, but I didn't feel the need to explain.

After we had finished eating, Potter stood and looked at me awkwardly. "So, Marlene, want to walk to Charms together?" He asked. The others all looked down at their plates as I stammered out a yes and we left together, but I heard them laughing as we walked away.

"Sorry if that was super weird," Potter said sheepishly, running his hands through his hair. "I wanted to talk to you alone and there's no subtle way to do it really when we all have the same classes and live in the same dorms."  
"It's fine," I told him with a smile. "I can't think of a subtle way to say it either. So what did you want to talk about?"

"Erm – I'm not really sure," he chuckled. "Just thought we should spend some time together since I don't really think we've ever talked just the two of us."

"Yeah, it's true I guess," I told him. "So, tell me about James Potter."

"Well, what would you like to know?"  
"Hmm, well I know about your family – at least that you're pureblood and have no siblings, since I've met your parents at your house and mine – it's sort of weird that we haven't spent more time together considering we're in the same house, and our parents are friends, isn't it?" I mused, distracted from his question.

"Yeah, I suppose it is," James replied. "I mean, we've been around each other a lot but never really spent time talking to each other. I guess we've always both had other friends around."

"Yeah, that's true," I agreed. "Why don't you tell me more about your family anyway, like what do your parents actually do? I don't think I know that."  
"Well, Mum's an Auror, Dad works in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. They're both purebloods but not at all traditional, and they don't buy any of this blood purity nonsense going around. What about your parents?"

"My mum was a quidditch player with the Harpies but she's retired now and runs a quidditch supplies shop. Dad's a Healer at St. Mungos – my older brother, Mark is in training there too now, I'm sure you've met him?" I said.

James nodded enthusiastically. "That's right, he was telling me about it at the Christmas party last year. I like Mark – it must have been fun growing up with a brother." He sounded a little bit wistful and I thought about how lonely it must have been as an only child.

"It was a good childhood – my family is great, but my brother did drive me nuts sometimes when we were younger," I told him. "Did you have any cousins or friends around as a kid?"

"No cousins, my Dad was an only child as well and my Mum has a sister; my aunty Geraldine, but she never had kids. Lots of friends though, like the Longbottoms, Prewetts and Shacklebolts. Now Sirius lives with us in the holidays so he's like my brother and Remus and Pete are around a lot, so it's really not that different to Hogwarts," he was smiling and I didn't feel so bad for him anymore.

"I didn't know Black lived with you, that must keep things interesting," I said.

"Yeah, it's good fun having him around. Was a bit weird to adjust to at first but we definitely don't get bored," he explained. I wanted to ask why Black was there in the first place, but I knew from Hogwarts gossip that his family situation wasn't exactly ideal and I didn't want to sound like I was prying. I was trying to think of something else to say, but James asked me a question about my brother's training and we talked about that until we arrived at the classroom.

"Well, here we are at Charms," James said with an odd hand gesture. "I'd ask you to sit with me but I know we're practising non-verbal charms again and I don't think Evans would be too pleased about me stealing her partner and sticking her with Peter, so..." he trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence. I smiled at him, following his gaze to Lily who was already there, evidently having skipped breakfast to finish her Charms homework before class.

"No worries James, thanks for walking with me here. I guess we'll talk later," I told him, walking over to sit next to Lily. She looked up when she heard my voice, and greeted me with a confused edge to her voice. As the classroom filled up with chattering students she asked me quietly; "Did you just walk in here with Potter? Just the two of you?"  
"Umm, yeah." I told her, pulling out my books to avoid having to look at her. I knew that I would have to tell her about my date with James but I felt awkward about it and wasn't sure how to say it.

"So?" She asked pointedly. "Did he have you under the Imperius curse or something?"  
"No," I told her, smiling at her incredulity. "I wanted to walk here with him." There was another pause, but I could see from her face that she was going to continue asking questions until she got what she wanted so I decided to just tell her.

"James asked me to go to Hogsmeade with him. I wasn't expecting it, but I get along well with him and no one ever asks me on dates so I said yes. And I don't want you to try and talk me out of it." I told her, the last sentence coming out more harshly than I'd intended it to.

"I wasn't going to talk you out of Marls," she said looking wounded. "If you want to go with him then I'm happy for you. I mean, I think you're a bit crazy, but I'm happy for you."

"Well, thanks," I told her with a small smile. "I appreciate that. Now I have something serious to talk about - do you mind if I borrow your green top for Hogsmeade?" Lily laughed at me and said it was fine, and I relaxed, suddenly wondering why I'd been so worried about telling her in the first place.


	6. The Chat

I was sitting in the library with Mary and Remus on Thursday afternoon working on our Defence Against the Dark Arts homework.

"What is it again that the shape of your patronus is supposed to reflect?" Mary asked, flipping through her textbook.

"Something to do with your true character, I think," Remus said distractedly, sketching out a Dementor on his own parchment.

"That looks terrifying," I told him. "You're good at drawing."

He shrugged his shoulders, muttering a quiet thanks. We worked in silence for a few minutes, until I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned around and saw a fifth year Hufflepuff prefect, McMillan.

"Hi Lily," she greeted me with a smile.

"Hey," I smiled back "What's up?"  
"Well I've just heard from one of the Slytherins that my patrol partner, Goyle, got himself hurt in potions today, something about his cauldron blowing up. So I don't have a partner for tonight since he's still in the infirmary."  
"Oh," I tried to contain a smile. Goyle was known for being somewhat of a hazard in a potions classroom, and it seemed that his reputation was justified. "Well I'm sure we can switch him with someone else, let me check." I pulled the prefect patrol roster from my bag and scanned through it briefly. I picked the pair of prefects on duty for tomorrow night and decided to switch one of them, trying to remember whether either of them would be free on a Thursday night. At that moment, Potter and Pettigrew joined us at the table, and Potter leaned over my shoulder to see what I was doing with the roster.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Goyle's got himself injured so McMillan needs a new patrol partner tonight - I'm thinking either one of these two," I pointed at the names of the pair in question.

"Easy," Potter said. "Hufflepuff has training tonight, so we swap Goyle with Jorkins." He glanced up at McMillan. "You ok with that?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, no problems. Do I need to let Jorkins know?"

"Nah, that's ok," Potter smiled at her. "I'll find her and ask her to make the switch. If you can let Goyle know once he's out of the infirmary that he needs to patrol tomorrow that would be good though."  
McMillan agreed and left, going back to her friends to continue her study.

"Why are you so sure you'll be able to find Jorkins?" I asked Potter. "She could be anywhere in the castle." James just shrugged, pulling his bag back over his shoulder.

"I passed her on my way here. I'll go find her now and see you guys later," he said easily.

Pettigrew and Remus exchanged glances, both hiding smiles and went back to their work. I wondered what that was all about, but couldn't be bothered asking.

"You two seem to have this Head student thing worked out pretty well." Mary told me. "You and Potter actually work well together."

"Why do you sound so surprised about that?" I asked her, my voice and face deadpan so she wasn't sure if I was being sarcastic or not. Pettigrew laughed.

"Because you've hated James since the day you met?" He said. The other two agreed, smiling.

"I didn't hate him!" I protested. "I just found him incredibly annoying." I was grinning now too. "But he's actually been quite good at the Head Boy thing so far." I thought back to his apology at the start of term and smiled to myself. Potter had grown up a lot last year.

"It is a bit odd though, don't you think, that Dumbledore made Potter Head Boy when he's never even been a prefect. I thought it would be you, Lupin," Mary said, looking directly at him. He looked a little uncomfortable and put down his quill.

"Well, Dumbledore always has his reasons, and I'm glad it's not me, really," Remus shrugged.

"So you weren't - you weren't upset that he didn't choose you" I asked carefully.

"No," Remus shook his head decisively. "I have enough to manage with studying for NEWTS, and well, I'm sure you've noticed that I get sick a lot. It would be hard to manage Head Boy duties when I end up ill or away so often. I nodded silently, looking down at my textbook and quickly flipping the page as I realised I had left it open on a page about werewolves. I had never actually confirmed with Remus - I didn't think it was my business, but I had noticed that his 'illnesses' and 'family emergencies' happened to coincide with the full moon suspiciously often. As much as I had vehemently shut down Severus' claim that Remus was a werewolf, when for some reason he had become certain of – and obsessive over – that fact in fifth year, I had come to think he was probably right. Mary however, hadn't come to same the conclusion.

"I've wondered about that," she told Remus, softly. "I don't mean to pry, but you are away a lot. Is it some kind of ongoing health problem?" Remus fidgeted uncomfortably, while Pettigrew coughed in surprise, and opened his mouth to speak but then shut it again, obviously not sure what to say.

"Sorry," Mary blurted." I didn't mean to ask such a personal question, you don't have to answer that, I just was curious is all," she was blushing madly.

I looked at Remus who was avoiding our eyes, staring fixedly at the table. I tried to figure out what to say to change the subject, but then he spoke.  
"Yes," he said quietly, looking up but avoiding our eyes. "I have regular episodes of a certain illness; nothing life-threatening though, just a real inconvenience," he forced a smile and Pettigrew let out a loud, fake laugh.

"Yes, you're very inconvenient," he smiled.

Mary's curiosity wasn't sated. "Does your condition have a name?" she pressed. "Can it be cured?"

"No," Remus said quietly. "There's no cure. And yes, it has a name," he hesitated, and I wondered if he was going to confirm my suspicions.  
Pettigrew was looking at him like he was nuts. "Moony, are you sure you want to -" he started, but Remus cut him off.

"Yes," Remus assured him. "I trust them." But his face was anxious in spite of his words.

"It's called lycanthropy." He said softly, staring his eyes flicking between Mary and I as he waited for our reactions.

Mary was mulling it over in her head. and I could see she knew the answer but was doubting herself. "Doesn't that mean - isn't that... are you a werewolf?" She asked in a whisper.

"Well, I prefer to say I have a furry little secret that rears its head once a month," Remus said firmly. "But yes, that is what I am."

I smiled at his terminology. "That must be rough," I told him.

"You - you don't seem surprised, Evans," Pettigrew told me, slowly. "Did Snape –" Remus gave him a look that clearly said; 'shut up!' and he stopped speaking mid-sentence.

I hesitated, trying to find the right words. "I had a suspicion that it might be that. The timing of your illnesses and family situations were a little too regular – I noticed when we had patrols together." I said quietly. "But I figured you'd tell me if you wanted me to know, so I didn't ask." I didn't acknowledge Pettigrew's comment about Snape, figuring it was easier to let sleeping dogs lie, and Remus seemed to agree.

"Thanks Evans," he said with a small smile on his face. "I appreciate that." He looked back at Mary, whose look of shock was now directed at me.

"You never said anything... " she trailed off slowly, but then suddenly seemed to realise that Remus was still waiting for her reaction, and turned back to face him. "I'm sorry to hear that," she told him earnestly. "Lily's right, that must be really tough. I had no idea"  
"It is tough," he shrugged. "But there's not a lot I can do about it. So you two aren't afraid of me?" he asked, his face nervous once again.  
"Right now, I'm more scared of getting a papercut from this book than I am of you," I told him. Mary nodded eagerly.

"I mean, I hope you don't mind if we avoid you on full moon nights, but other than that, why would we be afraid of you?" she added, smiling.

"Thanks," Remus told us both. "See, Peter I told you I can trust them." Pettigrew shrugged in apology, a smile on his face as he looked at Remus.

"Sorry girls," Pettigrew said earnestly. "And yes, I would recommend staying away from him on those particular nights." We all laughed and the tension broke somewhat.

"I'd appreciate it if you keep this quiet though," Remus said earnestly. "You can tell Prewett and McKinnon if you like, but please don't tell anyone else."  
"Of course not," Mary reassured him.

I figured this was the best chance I would have to ask the questions I had been pondering for a while, so I decided to go for it. "I was wondering though, I hope you don't mind me asking, but where do you go during the full moon?" I asked. I had wondered whether there was a secure room in the castle where he could stay during his transformation.

"Well, actually," Remus grinned wolfishly. "You know that old house outside Hogsmeade, the one they think is haunted which they've started to call the Shrieking Shack?"

Mary and I both nodded, my mouth suddenly falling open as I connected the dots in my head. Awful howling noises coming from there occasionally, had only been happening since we had started school; it all made sense.

"Yes," Remus said, looking at my face. "I'm the one making the noise every full moon."

"But how do you get in there?" Mary asked. "And is it - well, I don't mean to sound rude, but it's very close to the village, so is it secure?"

"There's a secret passageway," Pettigrew told us eagerly. "It starts under the whomping willow, there's a trick to make the tree stay still while you get in."

"And yes, "Remus assured us. "It's quite secure. I've ever harmed a human during full moon."

"Well, that's good to hear," Mary said, hurrying to add. "Not that we'd blame you or anything, I mean."  
"I know," Remus said gently. "I would hate myself if I harmed anyone, especially someone at this school. But it's very safe – Dumbledore wouldn't have suggested it otherwise."

There was a slight pause, and I wondered briefly how much we could ask before it would seem pushy. I didn't want to make Remus feel uncomfortable or judged but now he had brought it up, I was burning with curiosity.

"How long have you been - well how long have you had this condition.

Remus grimaced. "Since I was five. My dad had an argument with a werewolf he worked with at the ministry - lovely bloke, name of Greyback – so he came searching for us on the night of a full moon. I was his revenge on my father."

Mary looked disgusted, but I was too busy trying to place that name. Greyback, I had heard it somewhere recently.

"Why have I heard of him?" I pondered out loud.  
"He was in the paper last week," Pettigrew muttered. "He was one of the wizards found in that Auror raid when they were trying to find the blood purity nutter, Voleymore or whatever he calls himself. Greyback didn't deny that he supports him so he was mentioned a few times in the article." We fell silent for a moment, not sure what to say to that.

"Anyway, to answer your original question," Remus said, looking back at me. "That's why Dumbledore didn't make me Head Boy, and I'm glad he didn't. It would be harder to play off my absences as occasional colds or family situations if I was in a position where people are relying on me. They would be much more likely to work out the timeline, like Lily did. Besides, I think it's actually good for James to have some responsibility pushed on him."

I nodded, mulling that over. "Yes, I think you're right actually. I'm enjoying working with him so far - I think he wants to prove Dumbledore that he deserves the badge, so he's actually being responsible which is nice."

"I think you mean boring," Pettigrew corrected me. "We haven't pranked a single Slytherin yet this year!" We all laughed at that and the serious tone of the conversation disappeared as we went back to chatting lightly about past Marauder pranks.


	7. The Date

I arrived in the entrance hall ten minutes early, wanting to prove to McKinnon that I really did want to spend the day with her. I felt as though she was still doubting my motives and wanted to make it clear that I liked her – even if it did turn out to be just as a friend.

I grinned when she came down the stairs with Evans and Prewett. McKinnon smiled shyly as they reached me, then turned to the other girls.

"So I guess I'll see you later then," she told them.

"See you later, have a good date," Prewett winked suggestively, as Evans laughed uncomfortably.

I hooked McKinnon's arm through mine and led her gallantly out the front doors. "Good morning my fair lady," I said, putting on a high-pitched accent.

"That was terrible," she told me, but she was laughing so I figured that was ok. We hopped into an empty, waiting carriage and I could see the other three marauders coming out the doors, along with Evans and Prewett. I suddenly realised exactly what was about to happen and turned to McKinnon, laughing.

"So much for farewelling your friends before our private carriage ride," I told her. She looked at me in confusion, then looked out at her friends, sheepishly approaching our carriage. She started laughing too as the two girls clambered in with us and my friends piled into the carriage behind us.

"Long time no see," I told the girls.

"Yeah, we just couldn't stand to be away from Marls for so long," Prewett grinned.

I smiled back at her, shifting my arm so that McKinnon could extract hers if she wanted to. She didn't move it though, distracted by the landscape outside, and I was glad that she didn't feel uncomfortable around her friends.

"I'm glad it's still warm, but Hogsmeade is much nicer when it snows," she said wistfully.

I stared at her for a second. "Are you crazy? Hogsmeade is the best when it's warm! Trudging around in the snow, struggling to get a seat in the pub, wearing seven layers? This is much nicer!"

"No way!" McKinnon hit back, smiling. "Snowball fights, warm butterbeer, buying fudge to warm you up, everything all covered in snow, the village looks so cute."

I looked to the other two girls, shaking my head. "You know your friend is crazy right?" Evans was grinning.

"I've been trying to tell her Hogsmeade is better in summer for three years Potter, good luck to you." I found myself smiling back at her, a small pop of excitement rising up that we liked the same seasons… _No!_ I thought to myself sharply. _Do not think about having things in common with Evans while you're on a date with McKinnon! Also, seasons? There are only four to choose from, that's not even worth being excited over._ Luckily neither of them seemed to have noticed me zoning out, and McKinnon was still eagerly trying to explain all the positives of Hogsmeade in winter as we pulled into the village itself and exited the carriage, McKinnon and I falling a few steps behind Evans and Prewett.

"Look McKinnon, I'll give you snowball fights but the list of positives ends there," I told her with a grin.

"We're on a date and you still can't call me Marlene?" She smirked at me and I smiled back.

"Sorry, Marlene," I grinned at her sheepishly. "But you know Butterbeer tastes just as delicious in warm weather, don't you?"  
"Nope," she told me, stepping closer as we paused behind the other two who were looking in the window of the bookstore. "There are special flavours in butterbeer that only come out when it's cold, it definitely tastes better when it's snowing. Plus, who wants to drink a hot drink on a warm day?"  
I laughed her. "That 'special flavours' thing is rubbish, but I'll give you the second point," I said, wondering if I should put my arm around her shoulders or if that was too cliché.

"Right then, where to lads?" Sirius appeared behind us, wrapping one arm around Marlene and one around me, effectively ruining the moment before it even happened.

"We're heading to Zonkos," Peter said, gesturing to himself, Remus, Evans and McDonald who had appeared in another carriage. "Do you all want to come?" Everyone, including Marlene nodded enthusiastically. We wandered as a group towards the joke shop, Sirius still between Marlene and I as we joined in with the broader group conversation. It briefly crossed my mind that I should do something with Marlene alone, but she seemed happy with going to Zonkos, and I didn't want to miss out on all the fun with the other marauders so I didn't say anything about it.

After Zonkos our group moved on to the Three Broomsticks for lunch and butterbeer, minus Prewett who had wandered off with Frank Longbottom. Throughout lunch a debate raged (started by myself and Marlene of course) as to whether butterbeer tasted as good in the warmer weather. Eventually we called it a tie and decided to reconvene when it was colder to test it out again.

"So," Sirius said, putting down his empty butterbeer glass; "Where to next? Honeydukes anyone?"

The others all agreed and I stood along with them, shrugging on my coat. As we exited the Three broomsticks however, I grabbed Marlene's hand and pulled her back behind the others. "I actually kind of thought we could do something different," I said, looking down at my shoes and blushing. "You know, spend some time with just the two of us since this is a date and all."

"Oh - sure. That sounds nice actually," Marlene told me with a shy grin. Our date so far had largely consisted of hanging out with our friends like any other Hogsmeade weekend, and even though it was fun it wasn't exactly the one-on-one conversation with Marlene I had been imagining.

Evans turned around to see what was taking us so long but Marlene waved her off, with a "we'll catch up with you later". Evans nodded and turned to follow the others, though I saw her face tighten slightly and wondered if she was annoyed with Marlene for going on a date with me. I wondered if I should ask about it, but Marlene spoke first.

"So, what do you want to do now that it's just us?" she asked, fiddling with her scarf.

"I'm not sure to be honest, I didn't think that far ahead,' I chuckled. "We could go to that new teahouse that just opened up?" My nose crinkled slightly, hoping she wouldn't agree. The place looked awful but I knew lots of couples went there so maybe Marlene would like it.

"The one full of pink frilly doilies? I'd really rather not," Marlene pulled a disgusted face and I cracked up laughing in relief.

"I'm so glad you said that," I told her between laughs. "I only suggested it because I've heard people go there on dates and, to be honest I've never been on a date before so I don't really know what I'm doing here."

"Neither have I, so I guess that makes two of us." I felt much more at ease having heard her say that, and relaxed somewhat. I was very aware that we were standing up in the middle of the pub for no reason. "How about if we get another butterbeer and stay here to chat?" I suggested.

Marlene smiled, and sat back down. "Yeah, I'd like that." We spent the next hour or so chatting, and although I had a good time with Marlene, I found myself wondering how long it would take for me to develop the same kind of feelings for her that I felt with Evans. I resolved to try harder to forget Evans, and spent the carriage ride back to Hogwarts doing my best to get Marlene to laugh at my impressions of our Professors.


	8. The Game

"Hey Marlene," James grinned, waving at McKinnon as she entered the common room with Evans and McDonald. I looked up at them and smiled lazily as they wandered over.

"Care to join us for a game of exploding snap?" I asked them, gesturing at the cards spread out in front of us. Evans opened her mouth, and I was fully expecting her to decline the offer, but McKinnon got in first, sitting cross legged between James and I and dealing them each a hand of cards. Evans and McDonald looked at each other and shrugged, joining the circle as well.

"How was your day?" James asked them, and McKinnon started to tell us about a run in they had had with Peeves.  
"So there we were, trying to study, while Peeves flew over top of us dropping library books on the tables. I'm not sure if he was missing us intentionally, or if he has worse aim than those two second years who tried out for chaser," James and I both broke into laughter at that and McKinnon grinned in acknowledgement.

"Anyway, we weren't getting hurt. Then the new cranky librarian, Pince or whatever her name is, came over and started throwing hexes at Peeves. Well that just got him more wound up and next thing we knew he started zooming along the shelves pushing off as many books as he could. We got out of there as quick as we could, but we still copped a book or two each," she flexed her wrist carefully, showing James the blooming bruise she had there.  
"You'd better not be injured for our first match against Hufflepuff on the weekend," I warned her jokingly. "They're the team to beat this year I reckon."

"It's just a bruise, I'll be more than ok to play on Saturday," she told me.

James opened his mouth to add something but Remus rolled his eyes and cut him off. "Enough quidditch talk you lot, leave that for training. Are we playing this game or what?"

The game started again with the girls joining in. We went around without a hitch for a few rounds, laughing and chatting between turns. Just like our time in Hogsmeade a week and a half ago, it was surprisingly easy to chat with the girls and I wondered why we had never spent much time with them as one big group over our first six years at Hogwarts. McKinnon and I were chatting between turns about the upcoming match against Hufflepuff when we were interrupted by a timely answer to my pondering. Because Evans and James could go from being best friends to being at each others throats in about 5 seconds flat, was the reason we hadn't hung out much in the past.

"You can't _do_ that Potter, that's cheating!" Evans was telling him.

"What's cheating, I did nothing wrong?" James asked, innocently.

"You put down two cards at once!"  
"I didn't!" James argued back.

"They're like an old married couple when they argue," I said quietly to McDonald and McKinnon, shaking my head with a smile. I realised suddenly that that may be an inappropriate thing to say to James' girlfriend and opened my mouth to take it back but McKinnon was laughing.

"They really are. At least she can stand being in the same room as him now though, it's an improvement on two years ago," she said.

"I think you're helping to civilise them too, because they're forced to spend more time together," McDonald told her, the three of us tuning out of James and Evans' ongoing argument.

"I can try," McKinnon shrugged. "But I don't think they'll ever really stop arguing. They complain about each other but I think they enjoy it really."  
"I'm just glad you're around to help me play mediator," I smirked at McKinnon. "And to give Prongs something to talk about other Evans. I was getting rather bored of hearing how shiny her hair is."  
McKinnon blushed slightly, and looked towards me but didn't keep eye contact. "Does that mean he talks about me like that now?"

McDonald made a fake vomiting noise and I laughed in agreement with her, suddenly wondering why I had said that and gotten myself into this mess. "He's not that bad, he mostly just mentions something funny you said or a conversation you had," I told her awkwardly.

"Well that's good then I guess," McKinnon looked back at James and Evans who were still arguing, and I couldn't help watching her. It was true that James didn't rave on about her the way he had with Evans, but I had a feeling it was mostly because he didn't have actual conversations with Evans to talk about. Marlene was easier to get along with, she was funny and easy going and less likely to bite James' head off at any given time. I had never really understood James' obsessions with Evans, but having feelings for Marlene was much easier to understand. _That's only because you like her yourself,_ an annoying, suspiciously Remus-sounding voice in my head told me. I pushed the thought down, trying to focus on what McDonald was saying. I vowed to stop thinking about Marlene like that; she was my best mates' girlfriend after all.

My musings were interrupted when McKinnon moved to sit between Evans and James, putting out her hands like a barricade. "Enough, you two. No one else cares, so stop your arguing and let's get on with the game, shall we?"

Evans looked annoyed at being told off like a child, but James started laughing.

"Sorry Marlene, and everyone else. I guess it's Evans' turn now," he said, moving over so McKinnon could squeeze into the circle next to him. They were uncomfortably close, so James slung his arm back along the couch he was leaning against, which meant McKinnon was leaning into him. She gave him a soft smile as he said something to her, too quiet for me to hear and I had to look away, feeling uncomfortable at witnessing their intimate moment.

It wasn't because I was jealous, I told myself resolutely. I just wasn't used to being so close to a couple when they were being touchy feely – none of the other Marauders had ever had girlfriends before, and lord knows my family wouldn't dare to cuddle anyone, regardless of whether other people were around.

Yes, I thought to myself, that was definitely why I felt uncomfortable – I'd never seen normal humans being affectionate before. I snorted in my own mind and turned my attention back to the game.


	9. The Common Room

I came back into the common room on Tuesday afternoon, having been in the library since class finished, working on my mountain of assignments. I spotted my friends sitting a corner of the room with the Marauders, and headed over to join them. I had thought it would annoy me, spending more time around the boys, but actually the times we had hung out as one big group since Potter asked Marlene out had been fun. I had always gotten on well enough with Lupin and Pettigrew, and I had to admit that Black, and even Potter were very entertaining to be around. Being inside their circle as they talked about pranks or joked, it seemed far less obnoxious than previously when I had been observing it from outside, and I would be lying if I said they didn't make me laugh. I flopped down between Potter and Prewett, smiling.

"Finished all your homework already, Evans?" Potter asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah - wanted to get it out of the way and it didn't take long once I got started," I told him. "Brilliant," Black joked. "That means you have time to do ours for us as well, right?" I shot him a mock angry glare while Marlene laughed on the other side of Potter.

"That'll be the day. Lily hasn't let me copy her notes since second year, when she realised that I wouldn't dump her as a friend for saying no."

"That's not why I stopped!" I protested. "I just got sick of you expecting it to happen, is all. Plus I was annoyed because you copied my Transfiguration essay and Dumbledore gave you a higher mark than me!"

"What can I say," Marlene smirked, "Some of us are more naturally gifted at essay writing than others.

"Exactly!" Potter broke in, smiling at Marlene. "Some people are good at essays; other people are good at charming buckets of red and gold glitter to tip over Slytherin students' heads. Stick to what you're good at, I say."

"Hear, hear," Black agreed with a deadpan look on his face. "And some Slytherin's are a magnificent sight in red and gold glitter – they should stick to what they're good at and wear it more often."

We all cracked up laughing at the memory of Parkinson and Avery walking into DADA looking disgusted. I knew that as Head Girl I should probably tell them off, but it had been a very funny and mostly harmless prank so I ignored the thought of scolding them on behalf of the younger Slytherin students.

"It was a good prank," Marlene told Potter. "But you could have charmed it for fifth years and above, the poor little first and second years didn't need to be victims to that. It just makes them hate Gryffindors more than they already do!"

I expected the boys to shout her down and tell her off for ruining their fun, but Potter paused, looking thoughtful.

"You're not wrong, Marlene, we don't want to encourage them to grow up like the older Slytherins. I don't know how we could have done that though?"

I opened my mouth to suggest an age detecting charm, but Marlene beat me to it. "You just add an age detecting charm on the tipping spell," Marlene told him "It's simple magic really. I can show you if you don't know how."

Potter grinned at her. "You're brilliant, you know that?" He told her, smiling from ear to ear. "We should have brought you in on the prank planning ages ago!" And he wrapped her in a celebratory hug. Something about seeing the two of them so close sent a jolt of irritation through me. I mean, they were sitting in the middle of a group of people, did they have to be all over each other? And did he have to smile at her like she was the best thing on earth? I wasn't a big fan of PDA, and for some reason when it was Potter and Marlene it was even more annoying than usual.

"Earth to Lily," Alice whispered beside me. "Why are you staring at them like that?" And I realised suddenly that I had indeed been staring at Marlene and Potter for far longer than would be considered normal. I shook myself slightly and smiled at Alice, trying to brush it off.

"Didn't realise I was, was completely zoning out," I told her with a smile, deciding to tune out the conversation between Marlene and Potter as best I could.

She looked at me thoughtfully, and asked; "what were you thinking about?"

I didn't want to tell her the truth, so I replied with the first thing that popped into my head. "Just thinking about what to do over the weekend, what are your plans?" I asked her. "Got any dates lined up?" I joked. Alice's boyfriend, Frank Longbottom, had graduated last year and I knew very well they were still together.

"No dates, I'm sad to say," she told me, brushing away a pretend tear. "I have absolutely nothing planned which is devastating. What were you thinking of?"  
"I don't know," I told her, laughing. "I was hoping you'd have some good ideas."

"I have a suggestion," Remus broke in, grinning cheekily. "If you're up for some excitement?"

Alice nodded eagerly, but I was more hesitant. The Marauders definition of 'excitement' could often more realistically be translated to 'stupidity'. But then again, Remus was the smartest of the lot of them so if he was on board it might not be so bad.

He dropped his voice to a whisper and leaned in close. "Sirius, Peter and I were planning to sneak into the kitchens on Saturday night for a late-night feast, if you would like to join us."

I laughed in relief; that was actually quite tame. "Sounds fun," I agreed.

Potter nudged me gently in the side, turning towards the three of us as Marlene showed Black the correct wand movement for an age detecting charm. "Are you lot planning a group date without us then?" He asked, smiling.

Mary and I instantly denied that it was a date but Lupin just laughed. "So what if we are, Prongs? Are you jealous?" There was an awkward pause where Potter and I looked at each other, then instantly away to avoid eye contact, but Potter broke it by biting back at Lupin.

"Of course I'm jealous Moony. You're my go-to kitchens date, and now you're ditching me for not one, but two ladies instead? I feel betrayed!" I couldn't help but laugh as Potter fell into fake hysterical crying, clutching at his chest with pain. The Marauders might be ridiculous sometimes, but time spent with them was never boring. I caught Marlene's eye as she and Black celebrated his having mastered the age detecting charm, and then without saying a word the two of us starting charming pillows from the couches to pummel Potter as he rolled on the floor pretending to weep. The others caught on quickly and in seconds Potter was begging for mercy as he fended off the mass pillow attack.


	10. The Warning

I stood in the shower for a long time, mulling over the game that we had just lost. It was our first of the season, and Jessie Boot's first game as seeker. Though McKinnon, Smith and I had worked fantastically as a team and Daniel had had one of his best ever games, we had lost by twenty points when Slytherin's seeker caught the snitch. It was disappointing to lose after training so hard, and a small, childish part of me was frustrated that Jessie hadn't seen the snitch first, when she had been closer to it. However, I had pushed those thoughts down to console her after the game.

"You flew really well, and held up under the pressure. Sometimes things go your way and sometimes they don't; today they didn't. But you'll learn and improve, and you're the best seeker we've had since I joined the team so don't beat yourself up." Our team mates had seconded my speech, and Sirius had charmed his stick figure drawing of the Slytherin keeper to nose dive over and over again, which had made Jessie laugh.

I congratulated McKinnon on a brilliant first game with a kiss, until Sirius and Smith made vomiting noises and started throwing things at us. We had broken apart, blushing and laughing and Sirius and I had had a mock duel with tickling charms and laughing hexes that had left the others in stitches. The disappointed mood had lifted significantly with that, and even Jessie had a small smile on her face when she left the changerooms. I had told them to go on without me, so I could take some time to clean my broom, but really I just wanted to mope and reflect on the game by myself.

Eventually, I washed the shampoo out of my hair, dried myself and dressed, mentally preparing myself for the return to a letdown Gryffindor common room. At least I had the walk back up to steel myself, I thought, grabbing my still dirty broom and leaving the changeroom. I didn't get that far though, as someone was waiting for me.

"Potter," Evans stepped from behind one of the stands as I walked past her. The rest of the spectators were long gone, so I was somewhat startled to see her there.

"Evans," I shifted my broom to my other shoulder "What's up?"

"What's up is we need to talk," she said sternly, turning back under the stands and waiting for me to follow.

"If you wanted to get me alone in a secluded area, you could have just asked Evans," I grinned, raising my eyebrows at her. She just rolled her eyes and sat on the damp grass.

"Sit down, Potter."

I sat beside her, looking at her carefully, perplexed. "Seriously, Evans, what is it that is so important that you had to drag me under the quidditch stand?"

"Look, Potter, don't get mad at me but I need to say this. Why are you dating Marlene?"

I stared at her, fidgeting with my hair. I had not been expecting that. "I- why do you care? You've made it perfectly clear you're not interested in me."

"And I'm not. I'm just worried that you're only with her because she's my friend and I need to know that you aren't using her," Evans said determinedly, though her eyes were fixed to the blade of grass she was attempting to tie in a knot.

I knew I had to be completely honest if she was going to believe me, so I tried to explain my reasons for dating Marlene.

"Look Evans, it's not like that alright. Yes, I had feelings for you, and no they haven't completely gone away. But I do like Marlene, and I'm not leading her on for some nefarious purpose. I just want to spend time with her. Not everything I do revolves around you, you know."

"I know," she said a little bashfully. "And I thought you'd say that, I just needed to be sure. Because if you hurt her, I will hex your balls off." A snort of laughter escaped me at Evans' threat.

"Good to know someone has her back, but I won't be screwing her over anytime soon. I'd never hurt her, not on purpose anyway," I assured her with a grin.

Evans fidgeted with her blouse sleeves, smiling slightly. "Ok, well, good then. That's all I needed to hear." She stood, and I followed suit.

"So can I go back to our non-victory party now?" I asked, stretching my arms above my head.

"Yes, I'm sure they're all waiting for you" she laughed, walking back towards the castle. I fell into step with her, wanting to speak but not knowing what to say. Her laugh replayed in my head as if it was on repeat, and I couldn't help but grin at the thought of her smiling and laughing with me. I wondered if I was ever going to get over her. Marlene was great, but I didn't have that same constant urge to make her smile, and even when I tried I couldn't get Evans out of my head. Evans started chatting about a few of the fifth year prefects who were now dating, and I joined in the gossip, resolving to try harder to see Evans as a friend and Marlene as something more.


	11. The Fall

I was sitting in the common room studying with Alice and Mary when James came bounding downstairs grinning. He came and sat next to me, putting a hand casually on my shoulder. I smiled shyly at him, noticing Alice grinning at my awkwardness, and resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at her.

"We're going out for a casual game of quidditch and we need some more players, want to join?" Potter asked.

I looked to the other girls for a second, wanting to say yes but unsure if the invitation extended to them, but Mary had assumed it was and jumped in before I could speak. "Sounds good to me, this essay is boring me to death."

Alice and I quickly agreed, as the rest of the Gryffindor boys descended the dormitory stairs.

We headed out to the pitch, enjoying what was sure to be one of the last warm days for a while. We met three of the Ravenclaw players on the pitch and quickly split into two teams, minus the Beaters given we didn't have enough people. James recruited me as his seeker, whilst Black as the other team captain appointed himself as my opponent.

Potter grinned brightly as me as we kicked off into the air. "Catch me a snitch, won't you?"

"For you I'll try, James," I told him in an overly sweet voice.

Black and Mary heard us and pulled gag faces at each other, which I couldn't help but laugh at, poking my tongue out them as I took off to fly lazy circles around the pitch, watching out for a flicker of gold.

I quickly realised that though I was on Potter's team this was far from us spending time together given I had to stay out of the way of him and the other two chasers. I was a little annoyed that he hadn't picked me as chaser so we could practise flying together, but I knew it was a compliment because he thought I was one of the better fliers. I hovered higher than the others, looking lazily for the snitch when I wasn't distracted by cheering for my teammates. Black was doing the same kind of circuit as me, though in opposite directions and we pulled faces each time we passed each other.

"Never picked you for the cutesy flirting type," Black told me dryly, flying beside me for a lap after James scored a particularly impressive goal and I cheered for him.

"It's not cutesy!" I wasn't going to deny the flirting though. "Besides, what 'type' would you pick me as?"

Black stared at me thoughtfully for a second, then shrugged. "You seem pretty down-to-earth I guess."

"What does that have to do with whether or not I flirt with Potter?"

But Black didn't answer me, instead leaning forward on his broom and zooming past me. It took me a second to remember what we were meant to be doing, and by the time I realised he had seen the snitch, I was too far behind him to have a chance of catching up. I took off anyway, and pulled level to him as he caught the snitch a couple of metres above the ground.

"Not fair!" I told him. "You distracted me."

"That's the way the game goes, McKinnon," he grinned at me, cheekily.

"Bastard," I told him, shoving him in the side playfully.

I must have pushed harder than I planned to though, and Black wobbled dramatically, before falling off the side of his broom. We were only a few metres up but the impact still made an awful sound.

I flew down to his side. "Black! Oh Merlin, I'm so sorry! Are you ok?" He was silent, eyes shut, face screwed up in pain. I started to wonder if he was conscious and shook his shoulders gently, hoping he wasn't seriously injured.

Eventually, a lazy grin started to spread across his face. "Calm down princess, it was just a little fall. I will get you back for this though." Next thing I knew, I was on my back and Black was leaning over me, scooping handfuls on grass into my face. I was laughing and trying to fight back, but Black was taller and stronger than me so he had no trouble keeping me pinned down as he ticked my face with blades of grass. The others swooped down to land beside us, wanting to make sure Black was ok.  
"Alright, Padfoot?" James asked. Black paused mid-grass scooping to grin at our friends, with me still pinned underneath him. "I'm fine, just needed to carry out some payback," he told them.

As he spoke, I suddenly realised that his body was covering mine in a – not-entirely-awful-way, and he smelt nice, and his Adam's apple was bobbing as he spoke about 3 centimetres from my mouth, and if I just lifted my head I could be kissing his neck… I shook myself mentally. Shit, where did that come from? This was Black, I was not attracted to him. I mean, sure he was cute and funny but we were just friends. I was dating his best friend for Merlin's sake. Black looked down at me, dropping another handful of grass into my face and grinning, but his laughter faded when he saw that I wasn't laughing anymore. I gulped in a breath as we made eye contact, and he pulled back quickly, standing up and stretching out his back.

"I hope you've learnt your lesson about pushing people off brooms, Ms. McKinnon," he said, imitating Professor McGonagall.

"Yes, Professor," I replied, standing up and hanging my head even as I tried to pick the grass out of my hair. Black and I laughed at our own joke and Potter chuckled a little, but the others looked at us oddly.

"Well I guess that's game over anyway, shall we head back?" Mary asked. We all shook hands with each other, saying "good game". Once we had completed the circle of handshakes, we turned back towards the castle. Potter offered to take my broom back to the shed for me and I let him, feeling even guiltier about my thoughts from moments ago.

Black grinned at me as he followed James towards the broom shed, and I wondered whether I had been attracted to him for a while. I pushed the thought out of my mind as they returned, and James and I walked hand in hand back to the castle with the rest of the group.


	12. The Mark in The Sky

I settled down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall for breakfast, looking forward to spending my free periods that morning practising for our upcoming Quidditch match with James and Peter. They, along with Remus were already there, having given up on trying to get me out of bed early, and I wasn't surprised to see that they were sitting with McKinnon and her friends. I sat next to Remus, and mumbled hello to everyone, starting to pile food onto my plate. Our half-awake chatter was interrupted by the arrival of the post; James had received a letter from his parents while Evans' owl dropped a newspaper just about in her breakfast.

I watched Evans unroll her paper while I ate my bacon, and saw her draw in a big breath, eyes wide in horror as she took in the front page of her _Daily Prophet._ Exclamations of shock broke out from other students around the Hall who were seeing the same thing.

"What is it, Evans?" I asked, her, leaning over the table to look at the paper. She spread it out so I could see too, and I took in the picture upside down, feeling like I had been punched. Plastered across the front page was a picture of a burning house, with a green symbol floating above it; a snake coming out of a skull. The headline read "Muggleborn home attacked", but I didn't need the words to tell me what I was looking at. I knew that symbol, had seen it sealed onto letters coming in and out of my parents' house, a flash of dark ink painted into my cousin's wrist while she waved goodbye at me, flaunting it on purpose. It wasn't the mark that hurt, it was the fact that I recognised that house; I had been there with Prongs and his parents in the Summer. It was the home of the Shacklebolts, family friends of the Potters.

"James," I said in a low voice, trying to keep it from cracking. He broke off the quiet conversation he was having with McKinnon to look at me, surprised by my tone. I took the paper out of Evans' hands, ignoring her protest, and spun it towards him.

He took in the paper with a look of horror, grabbing it desperately and flipping to page 2 to read the rest of the story.

"Are they alive?" I asked, holding my breath as he read the page, his eyes darting backwards and forwards.  
"Yes, he sighed in relief. "They weren't home." He quickly scanned the letter his parents had sent him in silence, while everyone else at the table shared the paper around in shock. I saw McKinnon's eyes fill with tears and remembered that her parents knew the Shacklebolts too. As I watched Evans comfort her, James stood abruptly from the table saying; "I have to go to the Owlery," and started to walk away.

I hesitated for a moment, unsure if I should follow him. The Potters had made it very clear over the holidays that I was to consider myself a part of their family, and I wanted to be with James while he wrote to them, but at the same time I felt like an intruder. I'd only met the elder Shacklebolts once, and their son Kingsley a few times, whereas James had known them his whole life. I was hesitating, when he turned back to me with a look of impatience. "You coming, Padfoot?" he asked quietly and I stood immediately, following him from the table.

As we walked away I heard McKinnon ask Remus and Peter "What was that about?"

We walked towards the owlery in silence, me trailing behind James' long strides. Halfway across the lawn, James spoke "What even was that green thing?" he asked. I knew it was meant to be a rhetorical question, but couldn't help answering him, my frustration and anger spilling out. "It's the mark that Voldemort uses, " I told him. "He seals his letters with it, he tattoos it on his followers and apparently he marks the skies with it when he has done something truly fucked up." James looked at me carefully, slowing his pace so we were side by side.

"You've seen it before." Not a question, a statement.

I nodded bitterly in response. "He invited my family to a dinner discussing "political matters of importance"," I said, putting airquotes around the words I had read on the top of the invite before my mother snatched it out of my hands. "That was the night that I left home."

James nodded slowly. I had never told him the details of my fight with my parents on that night, and I was grateful that he had never asked. I didn't want to see the look in his face when I recounted what they had done.

"How do you know about the tattoos?" he asked, cautiously. As many times as I had told James how much my family disgusted me with their pureblood beliefs, he was still careful not to insult them for fear of upsetting me and I knew he was wondering which one of them it was I had seen with the tattoo.

"Bellatrix," I told him, the name tasting bitter my mouth. "I ran into her at Diagon Alley while you were in the broom shop with your parents and she tried to convert me to their cause. She's mad, thinks he's the saviour of the wizarding world." James didn't respond so I continued, glad to be able to say out loud what I had been thinking since that encounter before school started back. "I actually think she's in love with Voldemort himself as much as she is with his crazy, power hungry ideas. She was like a fourteen-year-old with a crush when she talked about him."

James laughed at that, and I smiled too, despite my bitter anger.

"Well, I almost feel sorry for the guy then," James said as we reached the owlery. I wouldn't want to be pursued by Bellatrix Black. Still, can't have too much sympathy for a lunatic who believes in blood purity, can you?" He asked and I murmured in agreement.

I stood quietly while James wrote to his parents, reading over his shoulder.

 _Dear Mum & Dad,_

 _Thanks for writing about the Shacklebolts, I saw it in the paper this morning. I'm glad to hear they're all ok, and I'm sure you're taking care of them, so be careful. They didn't deserve that - it's truly not fair. Sirius and I send our love._

He looked up me, "Want to add anything?" he asked.

I shook my head silently, so he signed off and started to roll the parchment up and attach it to his owl's leg.

"It could have been her," I said quietly, watching him try to convince the owl to stand still.

"What?" James asked, distracted.

"It could have been Bellatrix that burnt their house down. Or Cissy's boyfriend, Malfoy. It could have been one of my cousins or my aunts or uncles. It may as well have been my parents - they wouldn't do the dirty work themselves but I'm sure they're celebrating it." The words were bitter, my body flooded with anger and disgust.

James considered me carefully for a moment, before he answered shortly. "Yeah, it could have been one of them."

"I hate them!" The words exploded out of me, startling the owls on their perches. "I hate them, and their beliefs and that I'm related to them!"  
"I know you do, mate," James said, cutting off my angry energy by wrapping me in a hug. "And that's what matters. You can't help who you're related to or what your relatives do and believe. But you don't believe it, and you hate that they believe it, and that's what matters - that's who you are." He told me seriously, and my heart clenched at his words.

"Thanks," I mumbled, close to tears as we stepped away from each other. "I appreciate that. But I don't know if I would be who I am without you to stand next to. If I had been put in Slytherin ..." I trailed off, my mind going through the familiar 'what-if' scenarios it had ran so many times.

"But you weren't put you in Slytherin, _because_ of who you are." He told me. "And I am here, and so are Moony and Wormtail, so all those other what-ifs' don't matter. Now, stop thinking about them and let's get to Transfiguration - we're going to be late as it is. I smiled weakly at him but didn't protest further, following him towards the classroom silently.

We arrived at class ten minutes late, but to my surprise Dumbledore didn't seem angry.

"Sorry Professor," James apologised. "We had to write to my parents. Urgently." Dumbledore nodded in understanding and I realised he must know the Shacklebolts too. I settled in next to James, our friends turning around with sympathetic looks. Even Evans gave us a small smile and mouthed "sorry" at us. I shrugged at her in return, pulling out my wand to start on the spell we were working on. As everyone began practising the incantation and the noise level grew, Marlene turned around and placed a piece of parchment on the desk in front of James. I looked at it interest, but it was blank. She bent over her desk in front of us, writing notes -and then the parchment in front of James started filling with words. _Hey James._ A pause. _Remus told us they were your friends. I'm really sorry, and I hope you're ok._ James didn't move, looking at the parchment in confusion, so I took it and wrote under Marlene's message _How does this work?_ As I wrote, her words disappeared.

 _Magic,_ came the quick reply above my fading scrawl. _You write on yours, I see it here. I write on mine, you see it there._

James snatched the parchment back.

 _That's brilliant! And yes, I'm ok. Just wanted to write to my folks about it so they know we're ok.  
Lily's idea and spellwork, we use them all the time. _Marlene responded. _And I'm glad you're ok. I'm here if you want to talk._

 _Thanks._ James wrote back with a soft smile on his face. I studied him curiously until he turned back to me. "What do you want, Padfoot? he asked me.

"Nothing." I told him. I'm just surprised, it seems Remus' crazy plan to get you over Evans might be working."  
James thought about that a second then shrugged. "It might just be at that." As he said it I realised that although that was the answer I had expected, it wasn't the one I had wanted to hear. I didn't want to analyse that thought any further, so I just laughed, bumping his shoulder with my own as we got back to our classwork.


	13. The Word

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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""You don't belong here, Boot, you don't even have a single magical ancestor!" /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber's/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" voice taunted./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Go back to where you belong, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"mudblood/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"!" That was Snape. Despite the fact that he and I were no longer friends, and the fact that I had heard him use that word before, against me no less, it still shocked me and I flinched. Mary grabbed my arm, as Marlene raised her wand at their backs./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""What the hell do you three think you're doing?" She demanded. They whipped around quickly and I /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"recognised/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" the third boy as Avery. Snape looked shocked to see me, and blushed red in what I'd like to think was shame./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""None of your business," /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" sneered. I discreetly pulled my wand from my robes and angled my wrist so it was aimed at Daniel. "You go on your way now." /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" made a shooing motion. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"I shot a counter-curse at Daniel, who instantly straightened up and pulled out his own wand./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Oh look, his little /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"mudblood/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" friend is here to help him," Avery scoffed, turning back to Daniel. He tried to /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"immobilise/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" him, but Daniel was ready this time and used a shield charm./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" "Leave him alone!" Mary yelled. "He didn't do anything to you, you great bullies."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""He did do something," Avery snarled. "He's a dirty little /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"mudblood/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" and he's here in our world." /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Anger boiled through me, and I turned my wand on him, yelling "/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"STUPEFY/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"". He fell backwards, unconscious, and Snape and /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" gaped at me. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""You'll be in trouble for that one, Evans," Snape said lowly, his voice hiding the shock that was evident on his face./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"I aimed my wand at /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;", my hand shaking slightly, from anger more than nerves. "Put your wand down, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;", or it will be you next," I threatened, my voice low./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"He sneered at me, recovered from his shock, and tried to shoot a stunning spell in return but Mary was ready and shielded us all. She followed that quickly with a bat bogey hex, but /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" cast a shield of his own and deflected her curse, and the next three that she cast as well. Snape started throwing curses too, and Marlene and I joined in, alternating between shields and curses. Between spells Mary was still yelling at /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;", calling him a bully./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""How dare you speak to me like that, you disgusting half-blood," he spat, his hand making a complex movement as he yelled the word: "CRUCIO!" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mary fell to the ground, screaming, as Marlene, Daniel and I simultaneously cast stunning spells at /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;". He was blasted backwards, and Mary instantly fell still, her blood curdling scream fading into quiet sobs. I ran to Mary's side as Marlene turned to face Snape./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Go on then, Severus, are you going to keep fighting," she goaded him. "Cast an unforgivable of your own so you can be expelled alongside your oaf of a friend?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Mary, are you ok?" I asked urgently, my hand on her shoulder. Her sobbing quietened and I looked up to see Snape's response to Marlene's question./span/spanspan class="LineBreakBlob BlobObject DragDrop SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;"span class="SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanbr class="SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""No," he muttered quietly, pocketing his wand and going to check on Avery who was starting to wake up. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"I turned my attention back to Mary, who was trying to sit up./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I'm ok," she choked out, "just sore. That bloody well hurt." I helped her into a sitting position./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" "Thanks for that," Daniel said, coming over to us. "That was quite the stunning spell you cast on Avery, Evans."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Yeah, well, he pissed me off," I told him. "Yours wasn't bad either; I think /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" will be out for a while with the force of the three of us combined. You ok?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Yeah, I'm fine," he said. The two of us helped Mary to her feet, with one arm over each of our shoulders while Marlene stood in front of us, wand arm still extended and pointed at Snape./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Come on, we'll take you to the hospital wing," I told Mary, and the four of us started a slow walk towards the castle, leaving the three Slytherins behind us. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Marlene was seething over /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber's/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" use of an unforgivable, and Mary was whimpering with pain but I found it hard to focus on what either of them were saying. My mind had flashed back to the last real conversation I had had with Severus, at the start of last school year. I had forbidden him from coming to my house over the summer, and my parents had helped by not letting him into the house so our first run in after /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-style: italic; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"the incident /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"as I thought of it, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"italicised/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" and all, had been back at Hogwarts./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Lily?" A familiar, hesitating voice had asked as I walked towards /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Defence/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" Against the Dark Arts with Marlene./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Yes, Severus?" I asked him./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I just – wanted to talk to you." He said quietly. "How have you been?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Good," I responded shortly. Marlene hesitated in the corridor, unsure what she should do, so I grabbed her wrist, wanting her to stay. "What do you want, Severus?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I just wanted to /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"apologise/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;", for … well…" he trailed off, looking at his shoes./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Calling me a /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"mudblood/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"?" I asked sharply, making him flinch at the word./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I'm sorry, Lily, I really am," his voice was desperate and I felt a little pity for him, but my anger didn't dissipate. "I was angry and it just, it came out, I wasn't thinking. I didn't need you to protect me from Potter-"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I didn't do it because I thought you needed protection," I cut him off. "I did it because Potter was being a twat and I was angry at him. But no matter how much of a prat he was, it doesn't trump the level of prat that you hit, talking about my blood as if it defines me."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I didn't mean it – Lily you know you're my best friend and I think the world of you."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""And yet you said it, Severus! Even if you don't think of me like that, you used the word! I can't be friends with someone who thinks that blood purity matters!" I was furious, but I had thought about this conversation so many times over the summer that I knew exactly what I wanted to say./span/spanspan class="LineBreakBlob BlobObject DragDrop SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;"span class="SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanbr class="SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I don't! I don't think that you're a bad witch or that non-purebloods aren't worthy," he stumbled, losing composure in the face of my anger./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Then why are you hanging around with a bunch of /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-style: italic; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"them? /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;", Avery, Black; everyone knows they all support Voldemort and all his blood purity rubbish. If you don't believe in it, how can you be friends with people who do!"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I – Lily I can't just walk away from them, they're my friends. And they have connections, they can get me a job outside of Hogwarts – I don't want to be alone just to make you happy."/span/spanspan class="LineBreakBlob BlobObject DragDrop SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;"span class="SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanbr class="SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; white-space: pre !important;" /spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""You wouldn't be alone – you'd have me. And my friends, if you keep your mouth shut about blood purity."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Like Potter and Black?" His mouth twisted unpleasantly. "I'll pass on that thanks."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"There was a moment of silence and my heart twisted. "At least they don't think people like me are beneath them. If you're going to pass on giving up your friends, then you're passing on being one of mine."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Severus opened his mouth again, but I turned and linked my arm through Marlene's, striding off down the corridor and leaving him standing there alone./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"I shook myself out of my thoughts as we arrived at the hospital wing, helping Mary onto a white bed as Marlene explained to Madame /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Pomfrey/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" what had happened. /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"She nodded brusquely and then ushered the two of us out. "Miss McDonald needs rest and a potion; the three of you should leave her in peace. You go straight to the Headmaster, and tell him exactly what happened." She told us sternly. We nodded numbly and left, hearing her mutter to herself; "a student, performing /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"crucio/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"! He'd better be expelled."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""You ok, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Lils/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"?" Marlene asked me her voice full of sympathy as we left Dumbledore's office, having made our report. He had assured us that /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mulciber/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" would be punished "in a matter fit for his /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"behaviour/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"", though wouldn't tell us how./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I'll survive," I told her with a forced smile, though in truth I was struggling not to cry. We turned the corner and Marlene pulled me into an empty classroom, holding out her arms for a hug that I fell into./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""You don't have to pretend it's ok, Lily. He was one of your best friends and now he's well, he's one of them. You're allowed to be hurt."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"I nodded my head slightly against her chest, letting myself cry. "I miss him. And I can't forgive him and I hate what he has become but I can't help missing who he was before."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""That's normal, /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Lils/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"," Marlene told me, rubbing my back. "And for the record, if you try to forgive him for what he did, unless he seriously walks away from all his Voldemort-loving friends, we'll be getting you locked up in a psychiatric ward as quickly as we can because he doesn't deserve your forgiveness or your friendship. And whenever you're missing him, just come to me or Mary or Alice and we'll put on that mopey expression he always wears and worship the ground you walk on."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"I straightened up, wiping my cheeks with my hands and cracking a small smile. "Thanks, but for the record, he didn't worship the ground I walk on!"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Mmhmm/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"," Marlene hummed knowingly. "Well, why do you miss him?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Honestly?" I thought for a second. "Well we used to make fun of Potter and Black when they did something annoying or cocky but you all usually think it's funny so I miss having Snape there to laugh with."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Marlene laughed at me softly. "Ok, well I can't guarantee that I won't find them funny, but after I laugh at one of Black's crappy jokes I'll laugh at him with you as well." She told me, and I could feel my sadness lifting slightly./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Oh /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="ContextualSpellingAndGrammarError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAPEDAABVzDNVzDNV/wAAACH5BAUAAAMALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIInC2QchYKQgEAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"good/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;", I appreciate that. What if it's your boyfriend Potter making the jokes though?" I nudged her, jokingly./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;"Marlene thought about that for a second. "Well it depends on whether it's actually a good joke or not," she told me. "I'm not going to fake laugh at him when he's not actually funny."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Glad to see you haven't completely lost your head," I told her. Something I had been wondering about bubbled into my mind, and I let myself ask it, hoping she wouldn't be annoyed or think that I was jealous./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Are you sure you want to date Potter, Marls?" I asked her. She considered me carefully for a moment before she answered calmly./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I'm not sure that it will go anywhere, but it's worth a try. Why?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""It's just," I hesitated, trying to /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"organise/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" my thoughts. "Well I never /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"realised/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" you were interested in him. Or that he was interested in you."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Yeah, I know where you're coming from," she sighed. "But – well you know I'd never been on a date. I figured it would be fun even if we just end up being friends."/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""So… does that mean you don't actually want something serious with him?" I asked her, not sure why my heart was beating faster as I waited for the response. This was about Marlene being happy, it shouldn't matter if it was with someone I didn't particularly like./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I – I don't really know," she said, honestly. "I do like Potter but I'm starting to think we're better as friends." My mood lifted slightly at that, but she looked uncomfortable so I changed the subject./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Seriously though, Marlene. Thanks for what you said before, about Severus. I know that you guys will always be there for me and I really appreciate it." I told her, grabbing her hand./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""I know you do. And I know you'll always be there for me, but now I think we should be there for Mary, do you think /span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="SpellingError SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-position: left bottom; background-image: url('data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQAEAJECAP/8AAAAAAAAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAFAAQAAAIIlGAXCCHrTCgAOw=='); border-bottom: 1px solid transparent; background-color: inherit;"Pomfrey/span/spanspan class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" will let us see her yet?"/span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;""Only one way to find out," I said, changing direction towards the Hospital Wing./span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
/div  
div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; overflow: visible; cursor: text; clear: both; position: relative; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Segoe UI', 'Segoe UI Web', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif;"  
p class="Paragraph SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; word-wrap: break-word; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; color: windowtext;"span class="TextRun SCXW267938851" lang="EN-US" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-variant-ligatures: none !important; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif; line-height: 19.425px;" xml:lang="EN-US"span class="NormalTextRun SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-color: inherit;" /span/spanspan class="EOP SCXW267938851" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; user-select: text; -webkit-user-drag: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 19.425px; font-family: Calibri, Calibri_MSFontService, sans-serif;" data-ccp-props="{:259}" /span/p  
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